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As Long as It Sounds Foreign: Difference between revisions
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'''CMOT Dibbler''': It's [[Qurac|Klatchian]], isn't it?
'''Sol Dibbler''': Well technically, but I think it's [[Darkest Africa|the wrong part of Klatch]] and maybe "effendies" or something...
'''CMOT Dibbler''': Just so long as it's foreign.
|'''''[[Moving Pictures]]'''''}}
Many shows and movies don't bother getting a foreign language right when they portray them. The incidence of this increases along with the obscurity of the language. It is easily explained as native speakers are hard to get, especially if the country of origin is on the other side of the globe and the language is fairly obscure. And that's assuming any native speakers are still living, as many languages have died out for one reason or another.
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See also [[Foreign Looking Font]], [[Fictionary]], [[Black Belt in Origami]]. See also [[Speaking Simlish]]. [[Canis Latinicus]] and [[El Spanish-O]] are subtropes specifically dealing with Latin and foreign affixes, respectively. Also consider [[Esperanto, the Universal Language]]
{{examples}}
== Advertising ==
* An ad for Bertolli features an "Italian" chef lamenting that Bertolli is stealing his business, to the tune of the Habanera from Bizet's ''Carmen'', a French opera that's set in Spain (and a Spanish form of music).
* An ad for Dunkin' Donuts has a [[Take That]] jingle from [[They Might Be Giants]] aimed at Starbucks, complaining about the gratuitous foreign-sounding gibberish in its drink orders:
{{quote|Is it French? Or is it Italian? Perhaps [[Title Drop|Fritalian]]?}}
** Ironically, this is an ad for Dunkin' Donuts lattes—and "latte" is itself an Italian word. Although in Italian, it means ''milk'' rather than ''a coffee drink containing milk''. (Italians drink "caffe latte".)
* A German commercial used quasi-Italian sentences that really were German phrases spoken with a strange tone, like "Pasta ber prima" (=Passt aber prima / That fits [you] really good!)
* A South African ad for an Italian restaurant / coffee place had a husband pretending to say romantic things to his wife. Actually, he is surreptitiously reading the take-away ("takeout") menu, only with dramatic / passionate intonation. The wife goes all weak-kneed and says that she loves it when he speaks Italian to her.
{{quote|"Oh Frikkie, I ''love'' it when you speak foreign!"}}
== Anime and Manga ==
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* ''[[Batman]]'' example: Ra's Al-Ghul's daughter, Talia, uses the "surname" Al-Ghul, despite the Arabic patronymic [[Did Not Do the Research|not working that way]], but kind of makes sense as her name would thus be "Talia, of the Demon". The trouble is that she then uses the "Anglicized" variant, "Talia ''Head''", which [[Did Not Do the Research|translates the wrong word]]. Maybe "Talia Demon" wasn't subtle enough.
* The time displaced DC character Manitou Raven is said to be from the native American tribe that eventually became the Apache. Manitou (meaning "spirit") is actually an Algonquin word. For Europeans and others who may not know where the Apaches and Algonquins live relative to each other, [[Critical Research Failure|this is about the equivalent of assuming a Norwegian word or myth can equate to a Georgian one]].
** [[It Gets Worse]]: Manitou Raven's power word for becoming a giant is the same as the ''[[Superfriends]]'' character he's an [[Expy]] for, Apache Chief: "Inukchuk". There ''is'' a word that is very similar to this, "inukshuk", which in its language means "something that substitutes for a human", and is applied to giant stone columns and statues. So it would ''almost'' be viable as a symbolic magic word, in the vein of "make me as big as an inukshuk", if it weren't for the fact the language in question is Inuktitut, an Inuit language. To carry on the example above, this would be like taking that Norwegian-Georgian mythological mix and throwing in a dash of Swahili. Then there's the fact that Inuit did not build giant stone columns or statues: inukshuks are only a few feet high. "Becoming as big as an inukshuk" would cause the average human to ''shrink''.
* Hendy of the [[Blackhawk]] squadron is a nice example too, Hans is OK, Hendrickson is slightly un-Dutch, fitting a Dutch-American better than an unhyphenated Dutchman, "Hendricksen" is genuinely Dutch, but "Ritter" is the German word for "Knight", Dutch would be "Ridder", a title, not a name.
* Marvel Comic's character Silver Samurai's real name is Kenuichio Harada. You won't find a single person in Japan called Kenuichio.
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*** [[It Got Worse|Could be worse]], Hudlin [[What an Idiot!|had him utter]] [[Critical Research Failure|"Lieberstesh"]].
** Blackwing (previously known as Beak) is a mutant who was said to be from Rotterdam, the Netherlands. His real name is Barnell Bohusk, which isn't much of a Dutch name at all. Marvel has since changed his official birthplace to Maryland, USA, though that doesn't exactly solve the problem, either.
** ''[[New Mutants]]''{{'}} Roberto da Costa sometimes says sentences in Spanish... even though he came from Brazil, where the language is Portuguese.
* In-media example: In one ''[[Lucky Luke]]'' album, the Daltons disguise as Chinese. Jack decides to make his disguise by speaking "Chinese". Which means that he says "ching chang chong" all the time. A crowning moment of funny is when he is talking to a Chinese man who dislikes Rin-Tin-Can very much:
{{quote|'''Averell:''' Ching chang chong.
'''Chinese man:''' While I agree, I would not use such words even about someone as horrible as Rin-Tin-Can. }}
* In ''[[X-Men]]'', Colossus' real name is Piotr Nikolaivitch Rasputin. Rasputin is a common surname in the area of Russia where he's from, which is fine. And the patronymic is correct, even better. Then his sister Ilyana Rasputin is introduced. Slight oops; her last name ought to be Rasputina. The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe eventually gives her full name as "Ilyana Nikolaivitch Rasputina (Anglicized to Rasputin)."
** And even ''that'' isn't right - Nikolaivitch is a masculine middle name, literally translating as "son of Nikolai." Since Ilyana's a girl, her middle name should be "Nikolaivna" (daughter of Nikolai).
* Gabby Rivera was hired for ''America'' because she was ethnically Hispanic. She does not actually know Spanish yet made frequent use of [[Poirot Speak]]. The result is a horribly broken mess noticeable to those whose entire proficiency in Spanish is a single middle-school course. This is made worse by Marvel claiming the comic was an attempt to appeal to Hispanics.
== Fan
* In ''[[Naruto Veangance Revelaitons]]'', the only vaguely Japanese name is a character based off the author's best friend Danny. The character's name, Tadashiharakumaie, clearly falls into this trope.
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* The execrable ''[[Wild World of Batwoman]]'' (given a sound thrashing by the guys on ''[[Mystery Science Theater 3000]]'') had the main characters' seance frequently interrupted by a Chinese spirit. Keep in mind, the spirit's Chinese mainly consisted of saying "ching", "chang" and "chong" over and over again in random combination, causing Tom Servo to deadpan "You know, that ''may'' not be real Chinese." As Mike says, "To every Asian and every ''human being'', we apologize for that last scene."
* In ''[[Blazing Saddles]],'' the Indian Chief (played by [[Mel Brooks]]) speaks Yiddish. This was done on purpose, as the movie is a parody.
** And in one of the posters, the Hebrew letters for the Yiddish [[Spoonerism]] "Posher l'Kesach" (roughly, "Posher for Kassover") worked into his headdress.
* Alien language examples abound in ''[[Star Wars]]: [[Return of the Jedi]]''. The Ewok speak Tagalog, a Philippine dialect. Huttese spoken by Greedo, Jabba and others is basically bad Quechua, spoken in a variety of dialects. Lando's copilot Nien Nunb speaks the African language of Haya.
* Apparently those Westerns which cast Native Americans in speaking roles told them to speak their own language to add some authenticity, which would either be subtitled or translated by another character. The actors complied, but said whatever they felt like, often saying obscene or insulting things about the director, the other actors, etc. There are apocryphal stories of Native American audiences (in)explicably cracking up laughing during scenes that were meant to be dramatic.
* Trey Parker's college film ''[[Cannibal! The Musical]]'' is a film set in Colorado in 1883. At one point, they come across some "Nihonjin" Indians who are clearly Japanese people masquerading as Indians. "Nihonjin" literally means "Japanese person/people." At one point, the chief tries to assure the dubious main characters that they are, indeed, legitimate Indians by pointing out their teepees, one of which is made out of a Japanese flag.
* Movies made during [[World War
** Parodied by [[Terry Pratchett]] in ''[[
* In the ''[[Blade (film)|Blade]]'' films, [[Esperanto, the Universal Language|Esperanto]] is used for the street signs and posters in "foreign" cities to make the locale seem "generically European". Kris Kristofferson seriously studied speaking Esperanto for his brief scene buying a newspaper. In another scene, Hannibal King rests in a hospital watching ''Incubus'', starring [[William Shatner]], one of only two Esperanto feature films in existence.
* The Libyan terrorists from ''[[Back to the Future (film)|Back to The Future]]'' speak some vaguely Arabic-sounding nonsense language.
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* Subverted in the Russian translation of ''[[Dune]]''. The original novel contains a Fremen funerary hymn, which is actually a real-world Serbian song. The translator mistook it for garbled Russian, and, in the preface, he chastised Frank Herbert for "picking up the most pleasant-sounding words out of a Russian dictionary"; to convey the purported As Long as It Sounds Foreign effect, he translated the song into (gramatically-correct) Hindustani.
* Nanny Ogg of the ''[[Discworld]]'' novels usually manages to make herself understood no matter where she goes, although her linguistic approach is described as "gabbling away in her own personal [[Esperanto, the Universal Language|Esperanto]]". "Excuse me, young homme! Trois beers avec us, silver plate", or 'Mein herr! Mucho vino avec zei grassy ass'
** A straight example in ''[[
*** In the Dutch version, he is named Tweebloesem (Twoblossom) the literal translation of Twoflower would be 'Tweebloem'.
*** Possibly the "Rjinswand" discrepancy is justified, as he's also said to have been raised in New Jersey. Ethnic naming conventions are so intermingled in the United States, he could've had a Dutch-American dad and a Swedish immigrant mom, who happened to give birth to him while visiting her family.
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== Live
* In ''[[Don't Trust the B---- in Apartment 23|Don't Trust the B---- In Apartment 23]]'', the first season's final episode title "Shitagi Nashsi ...", supposedly means 'tall girl no panties' but in reality it's a made up word designed to sound Japanese. It's something like Senotakai on'nanoko inai pantī in real life.
* Parodied, like so many other things, in [[Whose Line Is It Anyway?|Whose Line Is It Anyway]]? during their subtitle games. Two players are given a language to speak while the other two repeat their lines in English. It's always just gibberish that sounds barely like the language in question.
** Subverted when [[Stephen Colbert]] was [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-K47xCUc7E actually speaking German.]
** Even more hilarious if they take a well-known word or phrase in that language and completely mistranslate it on purpose.
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20111202055056/http://www.zimbio.com/watch/PO01jpZ7ge-/J+Pop+Talk+Show/Saturday+Night+Live This sketch] on [[Saturday Night Live]]. It's all complete gibberish.
** Except for [[Anna Faris]]'s line "''ninhonjin''", which is very close to the actual Japanese word for a Japanese person, ''nihonjin''.
** The fact that it's complete gibberish [[Occidental Otaku|is kind of]] [[Acceptable Targets|the point]].
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** They would often use well-known words and intentionally mistranslate them.
* ''[[Have I Got News for You]]'': On this topical news quiz Paul Merton felt that the trick to speaking French was 'all in the shoulders', probably referring to a French stereotype of shrugging while speaking.
* ''[[M*A*S*H (television)|
*** The character of Nurse Kellye was self-described in one episode as "part Hawaiian and part Chinese," but in a later episode she mocks Charles (who is wearing a kimono) in Japanese.
**** However, given that before WWII, there were many Japanese immigrants in Hawaii, it's conceivable that she might have picked up a Japanese insult or two...
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* ''[[Castle]]'' features a female Czech victim called Eliska Sokel. While both names are legitimate Czech names - lacking diacritics and misspelled, respectively - the latter one is male. The female verson of the Czech surname Sokol is Sokolová.
* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XKbw9YMHUiI This skid] about an international radio show co-moderated by several european radio hosts. Except for the first German sentences, everything is pure gibberish. Hape Kerleking used a lot of fake accents and As Long as It Sounds Foreign in all his shows.
== Music ==
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* Boney M.'s "Rasputin", though about a Russian figure, throws in some German words: "...the kasatschok he danced really wunderbar". Partly excused by the fact that Boney M. was formed by a German.
** An especially bad mismatch as well; although both the Czar and Czaritsa had German ancestry, they ''never'' spoke German at court due to the long-standing antagonism between the two countries. Alexandra's best language was English, but most court business was conducted in French.
*
** What's even more exasperating is that they made a follow-up called "china nights." Japan is
* "Spanish Bombs" by The Clash has a refrain which is supposed to be Spanish but is not actually a complete, comprehensible phrase.
** To a casual listener, in fact, the background lyrics of "Should I Stay Or Should I Go" barely even qualify as gibberish as sung.
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* [[Billy Birmingham|The Twelfth Man]]'s comedy albums are practically built on this trope with the foreign players names.
** For the non-initiated, The Twelfth Man parodies cricket commentary with dead-on impressions of legends like Richie Benaud, with a smattering of "foreign" names like Jarvegemite Fermeeandad or the batting partnership of Kuttis Arminahf and Soonil Havaskar. He even does it with English names like grounds curator Bob Durunkel and Doug Deep, but his [[Crowning Moment of Awesome]] was his impression of NRL commentator Ray "Rabs" Warren reading out the upcoming [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4nDeChysygA New Zealand ruby side]. Impressive, though NSFW.
* The rock group [[Blondie (band)|Blondie]] is notorious in certain circles for gratuitious French lyrics that, while not exactly gibberish, tend to be painfully literal and non-idiomatic translations from English. To a fluent speaker, the French verse of "Sunday Girl" in particular is little more than a [[Dick and Jane]] level translation of one of the English verses; other songs are almost as bad, and "Call Me" throws in random stings of gratuitous ''Spanish'' as well.
* ''Brutally'' averted on Manowar's "Thunder in the Sky" EP, which features ''sixteen'' versions of the song Father, each sung (correctly) in a different language
* "Rock of Ages" by [[Def Leppard]] starts out with a German nonsense phrase "Gunter glieben glauchen globen". This was later [[Sampling|sampled]] by [[The Offspring]] for "Pretty Fly (For A White Guy)".
** Which was, in turn, parodied with the equally nonsensical
* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FcUi6UEQh00 Prisencolinensinainciusol], <s>all right</s> oll raigth! The lyrics are basically what the Italian singer thinks English sounds like.
* Similarly, the opening from the ''[[Hellsing]]'' TV series, [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJfeCTyTqP8 "The World Without Logos"]. Yeah, there are a few distinguishable English words in there, but most of that is just nonsense.
* The song
* The backing vocals on Paul Simon's "The Boy in the Bubble" - sung by Simon himself - consist of nonsense words that sound vaguely African.
* You don't seriously think the lyrics of [[The Arrogant Worms]]' "Gaelic Song" actually ''mean'' anything, do you?
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* Somewhat inverted with Adiemus. The language for this series of albums was deliberately stylized, 'not'' to be in any recognizable tongue. Instead, the intent was for the listener to percieve the voices as instruments, as [[wikipedia:Adiemus|The Other Wiki]] explains.
* [[Billy Joel]]'s song "Don't Ask Me Why" inexplicably drops "parlez-vous francais" ("Do you speak French?") for no other reason than it rhymes with the word "away".
{{quote|''Yesterday you were an only child
''Now your ghosts have gone away
''Oh, you can kill them in the classic style
''Now you parlez-vous francais }}
** The song is basically one big "I know what you ''really'' are", so that's probably intended to mock the subject for learning French and using it to pretend she's ''from'' France or at least grew up there.
* German metal Band ''Knorkator'' is well known for hilarously silly lyrics and the song ''[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XCmbXcJW49U&feature=relmfu "Maj Khao Djaj"]'' is only an exception in so far that it's entirely in Thai. However [[Bilingual Bonus|when translated]], the lyric starts with {{spoiler|i'm thai and have a german boyfriend / he asked me writing a songtext}} and later directly references the trope with {{spoiler|it's no problem if people can't understand the lyrics / so then they wont realise that it's a bad text}}.
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* Stephen Stills (who attended a school in Costa Rica during his youth) has [[wikipedia:Suite: Judy Blue Eyes#Final section|supposedly claimed]] the "Spanish" at the end of "Suite:Judy Blue Eyes" is meant to be incomprehensible even to Spanish speakers, and that he arranged the "doo doo doo doo doo, dat doot doo doo doo dit"s over them to obscure it and make it even more difficult to decipher.
* The [[Cocteau Twins]] built pretty much their entire career around this. Sometimes, in Elizabeth Fraser's euglossolalic vocalizations, you can hear fragments of actual words in English or some other languages (supposedly odd bits of obscure Scottish slang). Robin Guthrie says the Japanese audiences, when they played shows there, sort of inverted the trope in that they'd all actually thought she was singing in Japanese.
== Professional Wrestling ==
* [[TNA]] poked fun at this trope with the Curry Man character, who was supposedly Japanese, but was actually [[Memetic Mutation|NOT]] Christopher Daniels, an American white guy. Curry Man's Japanese was actually just Daniels reciting names of famous Japanese pro wrestlers. Late in the gimmick's life, Curry Man did pick up some English skills, but not without the over done accent.
* In [[World Wrestling Entertainment|WWE]], during the later part of William Regal's career, he was portrayed as a regal, high-class, British snob, which included mispronouncing wrestblers such as Triple "Haitch." The funny thing is, that pronunciation of the letter H is actually less posh, going against his "British Snob" persona for those in the know. It makes it sound like Corporate just told him to "sound as British as possible."
* [[Mitsuharu Misawa|Mitsuharu Misawa's]] powerslam [[Finishing Move]] is sometimes written as "Emerald Flowsion" and sometimes as "Emerald Frosion". There's no one correct way to spell it, since the second word is not actually English.
== Radio ==
* Internet radio show ''[[
* The [[Reduced Shakespeare Company]]'s radio show included a purported Japanese film version of ''Hamlet'' by [[Akira Kurosawa]], which included phrases like, "Ah, Subaru!" and "Sony tapeplayer!"
== Tabletop Games ==
* The plot of the first chapter in ''[[Pathfinder]]: Rise of the Runelords'' depends on a certain noble family: the Kaijitsus. [https://web.archive.org/web/20071211234602/http://paizo.com/paizo/messageboards/pathfinder/general/archives/japaneseNames
* ''[[Legend of the Five Rings]]'' flirts with this. Major, canon NPCs will get well-based names, but the guidelines for players and Game Masters to name their own characters vary, and so do the accuracy of the names used by players.
** There was also Kurohito, a guy born with stark white hair and fair blue eyes, whose name means "Black Man".
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* The ''[[Warhammer Fantasy]]'' RPG called the [[Big Bad]] of the "Enemy Within" campaign "Zahnarzt". Yes, that's German for dentist. The first edition was full of [[Bilingual Bonus|such jokes]]. It had a family named Untermensch (Sub-Human), an inventor named Kugelschreiber (Ballpoint-Pen) who lived in a house called Geflügelsalad (Chicken Salad), a fire wizard named Hals Roch...The bad guy is named "Klaus P. Verräter" (Traitor). Allegedly, there is also a good guy named Goebbels in the same publication.
* ''[[Kindred of the East]]'' has the authentically Chinese character 氣 ("life force") on the cover. On all other interior illustrations though all the Oriental writing is represented by meaningless scribbles.
* The ''[[Yu-Gi-Oh!]]'' card [https://yugioh.fandom.com/wiki/Des_Volstgalph Des Volstgalph]. "Des" is used in place of "Death", but while "Volstgalph" sounds German or Russian, it actually doesn't mean anything in any language, only done to make the monster's name [[Rule of Cool|seem cool]]. Indeed, the card isn't very useful in a deck, just collected because of its neat artwork.
== Theatre ==
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* ''[[Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney|Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney]]'' features a case with a defendant and witness who speak Borginese, a "language" which consists of [[wikipedia:Dingbat|dingbats]].
** Netopian in ''[[Mega Man Battle Network]]'' is also written in dingbats, as is Melnics in [[Tales of Eternia]].
*** Melnics is actually a cipher language with the font based very loosely on the latin alphabet and [https://web.archive.org/web/20120508202131/http://tales.namco.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=47985 can be translated].
* The creators of ''[[Ico]]'', to facilitate the important gameplay/plot point of the two main characters being unable to verbally communicate or (in Yorda's case) be understood by the player, came up with not one, but two fictional languages for their protagonists. Yorda speaks something vaguely reminiscent of French, and Ico's language sounds a bit like Korean. {{spoiler|The Queen speaks both tongues fluently, a talent she [[Evil Gloating|puts to good use]] in her little chats with Ico.}}
* ''[[Jagged Alliance]] 2'' is a notable exception. The demo has characters Gasket (a moron), and Ivan (a Russian with little patience). When Gasket displays his stupidity, Ivan finally says "I've never worked with such an idiot before" in perfect Russian, AND the game correctly displays what he said in text as well. Considering that excluding Ivan is the only exception to a game fully in English, it's impressive they took the effort to get it right.
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* In the 1996 adventure game ''[[Call of Cthulhu (tabletop game)]]: Prisoner of Ice'' a Norwegian character is introduced early in the game, but his lines are just barely comprehensible to Norwegian, Danish or Swedish speakers. In one scene he screams "I have never loved anybody" in horribly mispronounced Swedish (even though he is supposed to be Norwegian).
* ''[[Fire Emblem Tellius|Fire Emblem: Path Of Radiance]]'' and ''[[Fire Emblem Tellius|Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn]]'' have the Ancient Language, which the Herons use to sing their galdr. The language is just Japanese being reversed.
** The written version of that in the game is also a [[Cypher Language|cipher of English]], and is [https://web.archive.org/web/20131029135424/http://serenesforest.net/fe9/galldr.html translatable].
* Maybe this is a common theme in [[Tom Clancy]] games, but in the air combat game ''HAWX'', the game opens with the squad facing a set of Bolivarian insurgents named "Las Trinidad" attacking Brazil. The problem with that is that Las Trinidad does not mean "the trinity" (that's la trinidad), but Trinidad. As in Trinidad and Tobago.
* The ''[[Panzer Dragoon]]'' series has the so-called "Panzerese," which is basically a combination of Japanese, German, English, and either Latin or Italian. Example: One song of the Panzer Dragoon Saga Soundtrack is called "Ecce Valde Glorious Ale." Make of that what you will. (does not qualify for [[Fictionary]] because it uses actual words from other languages)
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* ''[[Arc Rise Fantasia]]'' has a handful of very short songs sung by Ryfia and another Diva, which they use for various purposes, including as their attacks in battle. Each one of these is in a significant-sound and very pleasant, but completely gibberish "language."
* Originally Kim Kaphwan from ''[[Fatal Fury]]'' and ''[[The King of Fighters]]'' was going to be called Kim Haifon, which admittedly sounds cool but is not a possible Korean name.
* ''[[
** The residents of Facade also speak in a language that was apparently created by shuffling hiragana around, which sometimes makes it sound like actual Japanese.
* ''[[Pokémon Colosseum]]'' has characters whose names go from just slightly off normal names to a random string of letters.
* [[Rance]] is a perfectly good if somewhat uncommon name. However, other names like Crook (who is a healer by the way), Ragnaroarch Super Gandhi, Reset, and Pastel show how [[AliceSoft]] [[They Just Didn't Care|just didn't care.]]
* In ''[[James Bond 007: Nightfire]]'' guards at the villain's Austrian castle will repeatedly shout "Einzelfeuer!", German for "semi-auto". It's the right language, and appropriate to yell at allies in a firefight the first few times but quickly becomes silly as that's practically their entire vocabulary, plus enemy guards will still use full-auto or burst settings while solo guards still yell it.
== Web Comics ==
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** The writers mangled the title of the episode "Burns verkaufen der Kraftwerk", which should be "Burns verkauft das Kraftwerk".
** "Endut! Hoch Hech!"
** "Die Bart Die." Sideshow Bob tells the parole board that this tattoo on his chest is German, although in this case, he's obviously lying.
** "Dingamagoo", a food Fat Tony's henchman Legs mentions in "A Fish Called Selma"; most fans assume this is some sort of Italian pasta dish, but according to writer Josh Weinstein, he made the word up. Although he does say he might have intended it to suggest [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pasta_e_fagioli pasta fazool.]
* In ''[[King Arthur's Disasters]]'', when thanking Sir Martyn in his "language," King Arthur makes random Japanese-sounding noises.
* The ''[[Daria]]'' episode ''Of Human Bonding'' features a Danish
* ''[[King of the Hill]]'': The Souphanousinphone family often shouts what is supposed to be Laotian, however, it is actually just foreign sounding gibberish.
** Used in-universe in the earlier Khan episodes to show how little the guys knew very little about asian cultures, which is in contrast to Cotton, who can tell Khan's nationality just by looking at him due to having fought asians in the war.
* Any signage shown in ''[[Aladdin (Disney film)|Aladdin]]'' is either English in a [[Foreign Looking Font]] or meaningless scribbles that resemble Arabic. (There's a possible exception in a sign above Jafar's door that ''might'' possibly have his name and the word ''wazir'' on it, which leads to a bit of [[Fridge Logic]]; why would he need a sign that nobody else sees to just have his name and title on it?)
* There is an ethnically Hawaiian character in ''[[Rocket Power]]'' named Tito. [[Did Not Do the Research|there is no letter "T" in the Hawaiian alphabet!]]
* There is an African character in ''[[My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic|My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic]]'', a zebra named Zecora. In her first episode, she speaks a few lines of what is supposed to sound like Swahili. [[Word of God|Lauren Faust]] explained that they were originally going to find someone who actually knew Swahili, but due to time constraints, Zecora's voice actor was told to just say some Swahili-sounding jibberish instead. Points for trying.
* [[Played for Laughs]] on ''[[South Park]]'' when Chef joins the Nation of Islam.
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* Given an interesting spin in the previous [[Star Wars: Clone Wars|Clone Wars]] series. The Nelvaan language is a mix of Russian and Hungarian, read phonetically by voice actors who don't speak the language, to give it a non-natural "alien" sound.
* [[Viva Piñata (animation)|Viva Piñata]] had a scene with sumo hippos who are implied to be japanese. The words they spoke were japanese alright, but they spoke it completely out of context, especially since the words were like "Sushi" and "Sashimi" that most western audiences would know anyways. It's a funny steath pun considering what comes out of a pinata, but given that they speak perfect english, it's a bit of a [[Mood Whiplash]].
== Real Life ==
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** In an aversion, German car company Mercedes-Benz uses a "Kompressor" (German for "turbocharger" or "supercharger") badge to designate its turbocharged or supercharged car models.
** The "Deora", Chrysler's concept pickup from 1965, was given that name because they thought it was the female form of "golden" in Spanish (it's actually "Dorada"). Maybe they got confused when they heard "de oro", which means "(made) of gold", and simply exchanged an "o" for an "a".
* In the [[Canis Latinicus|Latin language]], hardly any words at all end in a long E, an "o" isn't masculine, and "-orum" signifies possession. Adding "-us" and "-um" at the the end of every word also does not make it Latin. On the subject of those Sses-yeah, double letters are pronounced as both letters side by side, and they
** On this topic, ''mandamus'' is a Latin verb form conjugation; it means "we order". Omnibus is a dative plural (meaning "for all"). A lot of [[Delusions of Eloquence]] involve omnibi, mandami, and other idiocy.
*** Shouldn't the plurals of ''caveat'' and ''imprimatur'' be ''caveant'' and ''imprimantur''?
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** [[Robin Williams]] has a couple examples...
{{quote|"I got drunk and got a tattoo here ''(points to the side of his abdomen)'' in Mandarin that says 'Happiness and Laughter'. I think that's what it says, since I've never had a Chinese person that close enough to my balls to say, 'That's what it says.' But a friend of mine got a tattoo in Mandarin that said 'Golden Warrior' but later someone stold him, 'No, it says "Ass Monkey".' And then the same guy got a tattoo in Hindi that said 'Dawn of Enlightenment' but then someone told him, 'No, it says "Deliveries on Tuesday".' So he is now the ass monkey that delivers on Tuesday for the rest of his life.}}
** A post from a few months ago on [
* Expect people who speak a ''little'' Chinese to fake their way through the tones and, as a result, say gibberish.
* New Age "Native American spirituality" types often greet with "osiyo" and end with "mitakuye oyasin". The former is Cherokee. The latter is Lakota, thousands of miles away, and translates as "all my relatives" - which, without a verb, means nothing.
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* The hot dog restaurant chain Wienerschnitzel was originally called "Der Wienerschnitzel", but they dropped the "Der" part in 1977 because it's a masculine article ("Das" should be used to refer to neuter nouns). Even so, "Wiener schnitzel" (as it should be written) doesn't refer to hot dogs, but rather a breaded Viennese-style veal cutlet, which the restaurant ironically doesn't sell. "Wiener" is actually short for "Wiener Würstchen", loosely translating to "little Viennese sausage".
** Schnitzel is best known in the US as chicken-fried steak, which was invented when Austrian (or perhaps Bavarian) immigrants in Texas decided to make it with a different piece of beef.
* Japanese composer Kouji Makaino has used foreign-sounding pseudonyms such as Mark Davis, Jimmy Johnson or Michael Korgen when composing music that would eventually used in commercials [[Japandering|featuring foreign celebrities]].
* Besides being a [[Shoddy Knockoff Product]] of Kawasaki, the [https://ameblo.jp/enoki-2019/entry-12540850628.html Keweseki] marque sold in places like Angola bear the inscription "せんたんぎじ也つ" (translit. ''"Sentangijiyatsu"'') which is indeed made from actual kana, but makes absolutely no sense to a Japanese speaker. The brand attracted attention from Japanese media and internet circles who were perhaps bemused by the bizarre use of Japanese calligraphy.
{{reflist}}
[[Category:{{PAGENAME}}]]
[[Category:Naming Conventions]]
[[Category:Did Not Do the Research]]
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[[Category:Hollywood Style]]
[[Category:Truth in Television]]
[[Category:Word Salad Tropes]]
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